Captain Dumont stood upon the bridge of the UNSC Magnifique, a ship loaned to the Knights until they constructed or acquired their own. As they approached the desert planet of Kiltorna, he had called his special passengers up for briefing. Specifically he had Jaya, Kitty, and Sebastian in mind. Jaya arrived first, armoured fully but with her wings retracted inwards. She stood beside the Captain, who gave her a respectful nod, and awaited the others to arrive on the bridge.

The towering figure of Sebastian in his MJOLNIR GEN2 Warrior Variant Spartan armour entered the bridge after Jaya. On his right hip was a pistol magnetically holstered. 

After his stunt on the ONI base, Sebastian considered himself and his other two Spartan comrades lucky that they hadn't yet been caught - which was mostly in thanks to Ven and his destruction of the base. Still, the deaths of all those ONI soldiers and staff had left him with conflicting feelings about the mission.
"Spartan on deck sir!" Sebastian barked as he stood at attention and shot the captain a crisp salute.

Kitty arrived after Sebastian with her usual scowl on her face, her hair scraped into a pony tail. There was frost burn on the side of her face, along with her arms. She had had a visit with her sister before she came here. The sword sheath was attached to her belt again with a sword inside of it, although it didn't fit the sheath. "Sup."

"At ease, Spartan," Dumont nodded, before glancing at Kitty. "I'd say you too Kitty but, you always are." With a smile he turned to the viewing window of the bridge, gesturing his hand towards Jaya. "Give them the brief, Jaya."

Bringing out a small datapad, she nodded.
"Since defeating the Starforger, we've had Eli guarding the gateway, making sure no one get's in atleast until we found a safe way to destroy it. However, he's sent word that someone is trying to gain access. There wasn't much specifics, but it's enough to cause alarm. Us three, along with Sebastian's squad, will take a dropship to the surface in advance, get some more details from him and find out what's happening. Dumont will bring the main ship down for back up, if it's needed." With a few taps on her pad and a look around, she then asked.

"Everyone ready?"

"I'll make sure the girls are prepped. Maximum five minutes and we'll leave as soon as the light is green." Sebastian said to Jaya. He nodded towards the Captain before turning to leave the bridge and reunite with Spartans Masterson and Kalashnikov.

Kitty sighed, rubbing her forehead in an attempt to quiet her whispers. "I just hope this is quick, I've got better things to do." She muttered under her breath, leaning against a nearby wall. She unsheathed her sword running her fingers down the blade before glancing at Jaya. "From what I've seen of the student you sent me on that mission with, he isn't all that bad."

Almost ten minutes later the group were approaching the surface via dropship, their comms linked together up to Dumont on the Magnifique. As they evened towards the gateway, Jaya turned to her mother.
"Does that mean you believe in the Knights yet?" She asked, before turning to the exit ramp whether she got the answer she wanted or not. Half a minute more passed and they felt the ship touch gently onto the sand, ready for them to depart at the foot of the gateway.

As per Sebastian's orders, Spartans Kalashnikov and Masterson made sure they were the first to place their boots on the ground. Kalashnikov lightly jogged up ahead and scouted the surrounding area with her sniper rifle while Masterson slowly walked around the landing zone, searching for any hostiles.

Meanwhile Sebastian, still inside, walked to the front of the Pelican and addressed both pilots:
"Once we're all off, you should get this thing off the ground. Keep on the lookout and radio if you see anything out ot the ordinary." He told them. They nodded in the affirmative.

He then turned to join the others outside the Pelican.

"Not sure yet." Was Kitty's reply to Jaya, twirling her sword around in her hand. Kitty walked forward, stepping off the Pelican and onto the sand. "Let's get this show on the road."

With a sigh Jaya stepped out, walking ahead of the spartans and up the stairs of the gateway. A hand resting on the hilt of her sword, Blightslayer, she held her other hand back to signal for the others to stay behind her. Waiting for them to group up behind, she continued forward until they all reached the platform a the top of the stairs. Towering above them was the gateway, seemingly untouched and intact, but right on the other side of the platform was a site that caused Jaya to run forward immediately.

Eli's demonic body was twisted and contorted, seemingly in mid-air, although upon closer inspection she could there were spears impaled through various parts of him. These held him above the ground in such a position, and it was obvious they had killed him in the process.
"Who would-" She was about to speak, but noise cut her off.

First of all a series of emitters activated in the ground behind her, specifically in a circle around Kitty and the others. They formed a blue energy shield large enough to contain them and keep Jaya on the outside. Secondly there came the sound of stealth devices deactivating, as several squads of soldiers dressed in black suddenly appeared around them all. In reaction Jaya drew out her sword, slicing through two soldiers before being hit by an electric shock. Convulsing in pain she fell down to her knees, only just conscious enough to see the shadow under the gateway's arch move and grow into the figure of a woman.

Lana stepped from the shadows in the most literal sense, her form materialising before them. Trailing her black and red dress across the stone platform, she reached a hand over to carress Jaya's face. Stunned, all the angel could do was look straight back at her.
"Hello again, Kitty." She smiled, looking smugly through the shield at the vampire. Where her hand was there now appeared a knife, slowly moving to press against Jaya's neck. "Don't make a move, or else your poor daughter will die."

"Hold your fire, both of you." Sebastian ordered his Spartans as he observed the energy shield around them. He stayed silent as Jaya was threatened and began to think. As his armour was virtually linked to his brain via neural chip, Sebastian began to silently operate elements of his HUD and send a message to the Pelican, that was high above the ground at this point.

Kitty snarled at Lana, a thick black streak appearing in her red hair along with a red sheen in her eyes. "You stupid bitch, I'm going to skin you and give it to her as a birthday present." Every muscle in Kitty's body was tense and there was a look of dark fury on her face. Fire was dancing across her skin, but Kitty didn't move to attack. She wouldn't risk Jaya's life.

"Of course you are," Lana mocked, smiling down at her hostage. "I would've come for your head sooner, but my friend insisted I wait. Turned out well, because instead of just killing you I can rip away everything you love instead." A small almost-giggle came from her. "I mean, unless you tell me where Dan is. Then we can go on our merry way."

"Oh, except for that." She added, kicking Jaya's sword away, at which point it stopped underneath a man's boot.

"The enemy of my enemy is the saying." The man smiled, picking up the sword carefully by it's blade. With pure white hair and a long black coat, he seemed to know about not touching the sword's hilt. "You're handling the ship, right?" He asked, to which Lana nodded in reply. "Good, don't want their friends breaking them out of this." Mallock turned to look at the shield, examining Kitty mainly. "A vampire, extraordinary. With some spartan friends it seems. And they thought this Knight nonsense would save them." He gave off a manic laugh as he handed the sword to one of his soldiers.

At that point the Pelican came by, swooping low overhead before parking by the platform.
"That's our ride," Mallock smiled, turning to the ship which was now having two dead bodies thrown out of it; the pilots that had brought the group here in the first place. "Ta-ta!" He exclaimed, boarding the Pelican with a few of his soldiers, taking the sword off with him.

"So, where's Dan?" Lana turned her attention back to Kitty, blade forever at Jaya's throat.

Sebastian looked on, slightly angered by the sight.
"Identify yourselves." He said in a sharp tone.
Immediately after, he turned off the radio that outputted his voice to everyone else. He then began to contact Captain Dumont, with no one else being able to hear him but himself and Dumont.

"He's dead Lana, he was killed." Kitty spat at the woman holding a blade to her daughters throat. She was itching to rip into the woman, the fire dancing across her skin was growing more intense by the second as Kitty attempted to reign in her anger. "Just leave her alone Lana, your quarrel is with me not her." Kitty's hands clenched into fists before they unclenched, the tips of her fingers were morphing into lava.

Static.


"Sebastian, is that-"

Static.


"D-Static-ons!"

Static.


A beast-like roar emitted from comms, before more static ensued.

"Well I'm Lana, and that was Doctor Mallock of... Well actually I think it's classified, but I'm sure you're familiar with his men." She smiled, gesturing to the squads of soldiers still surrounding them. "Now then, everytime Dan disappears they say he's dead, so you're obviously lying to me. Do you know what happens to liars?" Slowly her hand curled around Jaya's throat, pushing her into some kind of portal that now materialised from red energy. "We punish them."

Throwing the girl into the portal, she then closed it with a wave of her hand. Head turning up to the sky, she noticed something approaching. "No doubt your prized ship crashing," She laughed, stepping backwards into a portal of her own. "Use incendiary rounds on the red-head." A tip for the soldiers, as soon all hell would break loose.

Lana dissapeared, the shield dropped, and the soldiers all opened fire.

Sebastian, Valeryie and Natasha's shields all flashed as gunfire hit them. However they reacted fast. Natasha Masterson quickly switched to her SMG and dodged out of the way and made her way around towards the soldiders, sprinting as such a speed that her figure looked like a blur. As she neared, she opened fire at the first soldier nearest to her with a barrage of armour piercing bullets.

Valeryie used her thrusters to dash herself backwards into a group of soldiers, her weight throwing them to the ground and crippling ang bones she came in contact with. She used her sniper rifle and stepped to the side, swinging it's barrel into a soldier's head. She then used the remaining momentum and swung it to the other side with two steps to the left, smacking down another soldier. Bringing it to aim, she sniped two soldiers that were firing at her before turning to snipe the others on the other side of the now-broken circle.

Sebastian meanwhile grabbed Kitty and rolled away. As he came to, he threw Kitty down right underneath himself as he shielded her with his body and used his DMR to headshot every soldier that was within his range. However his shields were draining fast as more bullets impacted against him.

It was like something snapped in Kitty when Jaya was shoved through the portal, the fire dancing across her skin dying almost instantly. She was so stunned that she didn't even object or really react to being tugged aside by Sebastian and put on the ground. Then suddenly her hair turned black and her skin turned pale, although her eyes still stayed blue, and she slid out from beneath him with fire dancing across her skin again. 

Her teeth were extended over her lips, rage etched into every feature in her face. She had momentarily given into the her whispers in her head, for once they had been on the same page. Kitty's muscles tensed before she darted around Sebastian with a burst of inhuman speed, her fingers morphing into lava-like claws. 

The vampire didn't even seem to flinch when an incendiary round ripped into her shoulder, although she paused for a second as it blew up. There was a small bloody hole with little bits of shrapnel visibly embedded in her shoulder, but just as quickly the fragments seemed to melt off her skin as it morphed into lava and healed itself. If anything the bullet just made her angrier. 

She threw herself at a soldier with speed, her hand going straight over the barrel of the gun and melting it to prevent further fire. Her other hand went to his throat and ripped it out with her lava-like claws. The vampire continued to do this repeatedly with other soldiers, blood spraying all over her and bullets connecting with various limbs before healing. Although her tactics quickly changed, instead of ripping their throats out with her claws she quickly switched to doing it with her teeth. The more Kitty was hurt the hungrier and more ruthless she seemed to become, like an animal. Soon the bullet holes were healing slower than before and she moved a bit slower, a few soldiers successfully getting a few punches in before she ripped their throats out.

The UNSC Magnifique broke through the clouds at an alarming speed, seemingly heading for a crash right into the sand. However at the last moment it pulled upwards, evening out to storm by with it's loud engines filling the air. From it's side an escape pod launched, smacking straight into the platform and skidding right into a pair of soldiers. It's hatch opened to reveal a demon, slightly larger than the humans around it, jumping out and roaring. At first it appeared to have landed to come for the people on platform, but as the sound of a shotgun rang out and it's head blew straight off, it was clear it had jumped out to escape something.

From the smoke of the escape pod rose Dumont, shotgun in hand, as he pumped it to expel the empty shell. Another pull of the trigger sent two soldier's faces flying from their skulls, before the rest of the soldiers had already been handled by Kitty and the spartans. Above them, the Magnifique maintained a steady altitude.

"Tried the ship crashing thing once, can't say I was a big fan." He smiled, pulling up his shotgun to rest on his shoulder. "We all good here?" His head turned to Kitty for a second, noticing the difference in her and almost sensing the rage. At this he instead looked to Sebastian, hoping to get a clearer answer of the situation from him.

Sebastian was put off by the crash of the ship. As the demon emerged from the drop pod, he brought his weapon to aim, but as it was put down by Dumont, he held his fire. He looked back over to the soldiers and saw that they all had been taken care of.

He looked back to Dumont.
"Sir, our hostiles seem to have some sort of connection to Kitty. One calls herself Lana, while the other was a doctor or scientist of sorts judging by his attire." He looked back at Kitty in her enraged form, wishing Gavin was with them for a moment before looking back to the Captain.

"They seemed to be wielding magic as well as technology. I have managed to capture a video feed of them. Shall we move into the gate? I was unable to determine if they actually took Nozdormu's corse." He suggestes, looking at Eli's lifeless body.
"Although.." he continued, staring "...if they got through him.."

As soon as all the soldiers were dead Kitty stood still, dripping from head to toe in blood. The rage was no longer etched into her features, rather there was no emotion at all on her face. The fire on her skin died, the lava-like claws morphing back into fingertips. Although the vampire had seemingly calmed her hair and skin did not change, still dark black tresses and pale complexion. "We should leave. Now." Her tone was icy and empty, unlike her usual angry huffs. She began to walk towards Dumont, her eyes darting to Sebastian for a split second. "They weren't here for the corpse. It was a trap. I can explain a little more about Lana, but I have to get back to Earth."

"The ship should be clear of hostiles now, they're sending another pelican down for us." As he said that the sound of such a dropship could be heard, causing him to turn and look up at the approaching pelican. It landed gently beside them and opened it's ramp, allowing them entry. Dumont entered first, seating himself at the far end and awaiting the others to board, before it would take off back to the Magnifique.

Once back on the ship and on their way to Earth, Dumont called them to the Captain's quarters. There they found him storing away the shotgun he had used, and tending to a cut on his upper left arm.
"So, you say they had magic and technology. A doctor and a girl named Lana." As he spoke he moved over to a large screen by the wall, tapping a few commands on it. "Spartan, the video feed please." Assuming he complied, he would then watch the happenings. Suddenly he paused the video, specifically to examine the scientist-looking man. "Mallock." He grunted in response to seeing him. "Kitty, do you really not know where Dan is? Or were you not bluffing?"